EC2151

Content Count

2,395

Joined

March 24, 2008

Last visited

December 11, 2015

About EC2151

Rank

Ryu Hayabusa (+2300)

Profile Information

Location

Chicago

Converted

Biography

I have played the piano since I was 5, and was writing music not long after. Please check out my soundcloud for examples of my work. I have composed game soundtracks and a few short film soundtracks. If you have an offer, please message me! I am very enthusiastic for new projects.

Occupation

Museum Curation; Music Composition

Artist Settings

Collaboration Status

2. Maybe; Depends on Circumstances

Software - Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

FL Studio

Composition & Production Skills

Arrangement & Orchestration

Instrumental & Vocal Skills (List)

Piano

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I like the track a lot. 7/8 time sigs are always fun to work with. I don't have much to add from what timaeus posted, but I will voice a (mild) concern over the use of percussion (woodblock?) at :54. I think it takes a little bit too much attention away from the melodic instruments. Maybe its reverb/volume can be toned down a bit. I am not sure it is adding much being so noticeable. Though to reiterate, I think this track is really nice!

Here are some things I would work on for your next track: Most of your instruments are fighting with one another for space. I would give them breathing room in the form of different octaves, volumes, and panning to give an all-together richer sound. A muddy sound predominates the track right now because everything feels like it is the same volume, hitting the same range, in the dead center. A few simple tricks (diversifying the range, velocity/volume, and location) of instruments goes a long way to making tracks sound 100x better. I usually keep the drums and bass in the center, because they anchor the piece, with leads coming in and out of the center as the track demands - however, you don't always have to do things that way. Keep it up, and keep on improving.

I like the instrumentation. It might be just my ears, but it sounds like most of the instruments hit in the flat middle. Maybe you can alleviate the feeling of "too much going on at once" in parts by accentuating the panning of the instruments? Otherwise, I find this to be a solid effort. Nice job!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29072735/dd_destiny_wip3.mp3 This is part of an envisioned album I have in mind. Each track tries to tell its own story, interlocking with the other tracks. This being the "theme" of the main char, with a prominent lietmotif. That's a bit secondary to the track itself. It's not finished, as can be evidenced by the fade-out ending (it might stay; I haven't come up with a decent ending idea yet). I am always trying to improve, so here's what I'm asking: 1) how do the drums sound? Do they sound like they are well-integrated into the mix, or do they stick out too much? How can this be done? 2) Does the track sound "empty"? IE, not enough sound filling out the piece? I am always curious trying to figure out what is a good number of instruments to have in a piece. Most of my tracks tend to have between 8 and 16 instruments, though some solo music I've written obviously pare things down. 3) My music often ends up being too soft and quiet. I decided to preempt this by increasing the dB level of the track in FL Studio mixer up to 115%, and the master volume up to about the same as well. Does this work? If not, do you have any tips for getting good volume levels? I suspect it has something to do with how my headphones play back music (I need to buy myself a good pair soon). I welcome any and all feedback. Thanks!

In my experience in the professional [nonmusic] world, if you do professional work for free you usually just get taken advantage of. I know too many students eager to get work saying "I can do it for free!" and people are like "Great! Fine by me!" When people approached me with contracts I was always upfront that I should get paid for my work. At the beginning I horrifically undercharged myself, but that's what experience gives you. It doesn't always guarantee work but it also keeps you out of wasting your time with projects that don't go anywhere. Speaking from the perspective of having done at least one paid soundtrack and one unpaid soundtrack, there are places to do free projects for experience and for fun, but not when people are offering money. It just undercuts everyone trying to make something out of the hobby.

I think Dissidia hit on the right points here. I think my first biggest thing would be to add a little more reverb, as well as tweak the filter settings on the brass since they stand out a little too much - in the sense they feel a little pasted on top of the rest of the action rather than a cohesive part of it. The lead instruments sound a little too front and center, and while that doesn't necessarily have to do with panning (though it never hurts) I would try to mess around more with the velocity and volumes of the various lead parts to make things sound a bit more organic. The "emptiness" can be fixed by adding in a bit more soft backing chords (or driving notes, similar to the bass strings at the beginning) - this can fill out the piece sonically. This is competently composed; I would recommend again minor tweaks in order to bring out the most of it. Over all, nice work.

The last time I posted here was around November of 2013. A lot of school/work stuff coalesced, and as I got busier, I felt less inclined to "jump back in" to OCR. Essentially it got harder and harder to put aside time for music. I switched mostly to FM-synth chiptune music, and still continue to make those types of tracks (see my soundcloud profile). 1+ year later and while the circumstances haven't entirely changed, I figured I might as well do my best to continue to hone my music craft. I welcome any and all feedback, since I really do care about getting better at mixing/producing (on FL Studio; I still need to update my FL10 to the latest FL). I would like to get together a portfolio or demo cd one of these days. These are three disparate tracks, but they are some of the better ones I've made this past year: Underhanded Foe -RPG boss-style track. Pretty fun; this one was floating around in my head for years before I committed it to FL. Conflict (Sea Zone OST) I would really appreciate some feedback here. This is part of an album I will be releasing that I have been sitting on for some time, but I need to tweak things around to make sure the sound quality is good (on a few tracks at least). Intro to the Living Legend Another album idea in its formative stage. I don't know if it will blossom into a 10+ track album like Sea Zone above. I tried going for a bit more sweeping and "epic" sound while still sticking closely with synthesizer sounds. By all means, take a listen and mention what you think works, or does not work. I am going to try to become a bit more active around these forums again, and actually try to get a mix posted one day (an on-and-off dream I've had for over a decade now, lol). Thank you for your time!

The characters in the rebirth movies look a little too plastic for me, but then again, I've never bothered with Eva again after finishing the remastered series almost 9 years ago. Though I liked the manga, aka the slowest-moving publication on the planet.